Translating Nouzha Fassi Fihri's La Baroudeuse: A Case Study in ...

sentences" and to recreate the aesthetic effects of the narrative. Marilyn Booth
wants "readers first and foremost to feel transported (and not geographically!) by
these works, to feel the literary excellence, to love the stories." Her purpose is to
interest readers in contemporary Arabic literature and in "what women were
writing and saying" without "reducing literary works to sociological panoramas."
Though also concerned with the literary and linguistic aspects of the
translation, Barbara Parmenter emphasized the text's informational value. She
sees fiction as a way of "being a geographical explorer" and of learning "through
literature instead of travel." She wanted to present Morocco as truthfully as she
felt Leila Abouzeid had done. Given her background, she was most interested in
the geographical and cultural aspects of the story and felt that it would be
interesting to her audience because it presents "a view of Morocco that we don't
usually see." She assumed that Americans would be surprised to see an Arab
woman so deeply religious and politically active at the same time. Though she
imagined her audience would be familiar with Western feminist discourse, she
thought it "useful to show the viewpoint of an Islamic feminist."
While Barbara Parmenter's interest in conveying information could be
interpreted as a belief in the political power of knowledge, Catherine Cobham and
Marilyn Booth expressed definite opinions about political objectives and
responsibilities. Catherine Cobham "felt an extremely strong proselytizing urge to
counter people's preconceptions, prejudices and ignorance about many aspects of
the Arab world, through imaginative rather than polemical channels." Marilyn
Booth came to identify with the authors of the stories in the Cactus collection,
recognizing that they "felt somewhat alienated from their supposed, 'natural'
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